Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:


After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.

UK: Drug 'trebles schizophrenia risk'

BBC Online

Friday 11 Nov 2005

---
Award-winning researchers have claimed that smoking cannabis trebles the
risk of becoming schizophrenic.

Scientists from Cardiff University studied the life patterns of 50,000
people who carried out national service in Sweden over a 27-year period.

The study found that people who had used cannabis more than 50 times before
the age of 18 were three times more likely to develop schizophrenia.

The team has won an award from health charity Bupa Foundation for its work.

Project leader Stanley Zammit, a clinical lecturer in psychological
medicine at the University, said the findings could be "hugely important"
for public health.

Drugs debate

He said: "If cannabis does indeed increase the risk of developing
schizophrenia, then you could potentially prevent hundreds of people
getting the mental illness if cannabis was not available in the population."

Dr Zammit and his team won the Bupa Foundation Epidemiology Award and have
presented with a cheque for UKP10,000 at a ceremony at Lincoln's Inn in London.

The vice-chairman of the foundation, which funds medical research, Andrew
Vallance-Owen, said: "This is a key piece of research that sheds light on
cannabis and a mental illness that blights the lives of one in one hundred
of us.

"The findings are thought provoking not only for those people who suffer
from schizophrenia, but for everyone, and will spark widespread debate."

The UK government downgraded cannabis from a Class B to a Class C drug in
January 2004 after advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

But ministers said earlier this year the decision may be reviewed after
studies linked the drug to mental illness.

In March 2005 researchers in New Zealand released the results of a study
which claimed smoking cannabis virtually doubled the risk of developing
mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

 

 

 

After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back. 




This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.

Feel free to link to this page!